Getty Images to buy your pictures off Flickr as Yahoo! agrees a deal

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Yahoo! has signed an agreement with Getty Images so that the commercial picture gallery can bag photos from Flickr at will, but before you go blowing your tops, the good news is that they’ll pay you if they take one of yours.

Typically, Getty Images get between $29 and $200,000 for each shot – depending upon where, how and by whom its used – and lucky Flickr users will see 30-40% of the action or 20% if you add restrictions to the use.

Now, part of me wants to leaps out with my hand in the air shouting, “Rip off!” but it’s not. It’s up to you to opt in or out of the agreement as a Flickr user, so nothing is compulsory and, frankly, it’s money for old rope.

It’s not as if you’re getting less than a professional photographer – for whom, by the way, this announcement is a real blow – and really it’s just a fantastic example of how to moneterise a web 2.0 site in a fair way. I wonder if they’ll find a deal for Facebook? There’s quite a few “friends” I’d love to sell off.